Movies: ‘The Disaster Artist’ reveals the strange story of how the worst movie ever made actually got made

By Al Alexander/For The Patriot Ledger

Friday

Dec 1, 2017 at 6:30 AM

Is it possible to make a good movie about a bad one? James Franco seems to think so. And it’s hard to argue after experiencing his riotous re-enactment of the filming of what is possibly the worst flick ever committed to celluloid, 2003’s stupendously awful “The Room.”

Franco calls it “The Disaster Artist,” and a better title I cannot think of because the director of the film within the film, the incomparable (and incompetent) Tommy Wiseau, is a walking – and especially talking – catastrophe. But that hasn’t stopped him from becoming a cult hero to camp-movie fans around the world. And Franco is clearly one of them.

You sense that admiration in every lovingly shot scene, as Franco resists the obvious temptation to ridicule Wiseau to instead celebrate the gumption and unbridled enthusiasm of a “genius” who worked tirelessly to write, direct, produce and star in what has been called “the ‘Citizen Kane’ of bad movies.”

Just think for a minute about how much effort it took for Wiseau to top the legendary Ed Wood (“Plan 9 from Outer Space”) in usurping that dubious title. Franco has, and he commits himself just as heartily as Tim Burton did to Wood in giving Wiseau his dubious due.

It’s a shame Franco’s writers, “The Spectacular Now” duo of Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, don’t share his passion and curiosity. Where Franco’s direction is all about the nuance, the writing is disappointingly perfunctory, seldom taking the time to speculate on a man so enigmatic not even his closest friends harbor an idea of where Wiseau is from or how he amassed his seemingly bottomless pit of surplus cash.

Wiseau, as so brilliantly portrayed by Franco, likes to say he’s from “New Orleans,” but it’s a claim defied by what sounds like mangled English filtered through a heavy Eastern European accent. So, what gives? Neustadter and Weber have zero interest in finding out. It’s the same with Wiseau’s vast fortune. Other than a mention that he was once in a serious car accident, we haven’t a clue about how Wiseau’s able to afford expensive cribs in both San Francisco and the Hollywood Hills, not to mention $6 million to fritter away on his movie.

Shouldn’t these things be essential to our understanding of what makes Wiseau tick? And other than a close friendship with Greg Sestero (Franco’s brother, Dave, fantastic), an easily impressed sycophant he recently started rooming with after a chance meeting at their San Francisco acting class, we’re never privy to any of Wiseau’s other – if any – relationships.

Such omissions leave gaping holes in Wiseau’s story, but you’re not likely to notice while under James Franco’s Svengali-like grip. He keeps you so busy chuckling, it’s hard to find time for nitpicking. Although, I wasn’t sure at first if it was OK to laugh, given my uncertainty over whether Wiseau was merely eccentric or brain-injured from the aforementioned accident. I’m pretty certain it’s the former, but I’m still not sure.

Ably abetting Franco in his dissemination of mirth is a who’s who of comedy royalty, ranging from Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Paul Scheer and Jacki Weaver as members of Wiseau’s dumbfounded cast and crew, to the likes of Bryan Cranston, Judd Apatow, Lizzy Caplan and Kristen Bell appearing as various versions of themselves. But the standout is Franco’s adorable little brother Dave as Greg Sestero, on whose memoir the movie is based. It’s through his star-struck eyes that we see a somewhat fawning view of Tommy Wiseau, a mentor he would do anything for, even when you root for him to run away as fast as he can.

Theirs is a budding bromance that knows no bounds, as against the wishes of Greg’s understandably concerned mom (Megan Mullally), he hops into Wiseau’s expensive Mercedes and makes the 400-mile drive from San Francisco to L.A. to live in Tommy’s swank hillside digs and chase their shared Hollywood dream. At first, the pair’s enthusiasm is invigorating and contagious, especially when Greg scores an agent (Sharon Stone in a too-short cameo) and lands a couple bit parts. But fissures grow once Greg meets the gorgeous bartender, Amber (Dave Franco’s real-life wife, Alison Brie), and Tommy becomes so insanely jealous he’s inspired to write – on a typewriter! – the script for “The Room,” a would-be chamber drama about a destructive love triangle ending in a suicide scene you’ve got to see to believe.

The script is both a release for Tommy’s growing frustration over “losing” Greg and a desperate attempt to keep his main man close by giving him the “juicy” role of Mark opposite his “James Dean-like,” Johnny.

Let the fun and filming begin, as Franco, the director, provides a sort of inside-baseball peek behind the scenes of what goes into making a movie, especially one done on the fly and on the cheap. This device yields many a giggle, especially via a wonderfully deadpan Rogen as “The Room’s” often flustered assistant director.

But the bit sure to bring the house down is the day Tommy shows up on the set naked, ready for his big sex scene (“Make sure they see my butt.”), prancing about oblivious to how uncomfortable he’s making everyone around him feel.

It’s a bit of comedy genius on the part of James Franco, who delivers one of the best performances of his career. Tommy Wiseau is flat-out weird, even a tad scary, but Franco seldom fails to make his character’s acute form of self-delusion charming and infectious. But Franco is at his best when Tommy’s at his lowest, which are those rare moments when fear and doubt creep inside his addled mind.

Yet, what I love most about “The Disaster Artist” is the way Tommy and Greg’s relationship adheres to the principles of a romantic comedy by freshly emulating the “I Love You, Man” template by having two dudes fall platonically in love, split up and then find each other again in the end. It’s oddly moving and undoubtedly hilarious. And that, in a nutshell, is “The Disaster Artist,” a movie about indulging one’s fantasies only to find that dreams are no match for what’s real and true.

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